Summary of project findings

Strand B: 'Institutions and Organisations' (January 2005)

Our fieldwork took place sequentially, Rapport at the NHS hospital in Ninewells in 2000-2001, Hearn at HBOS in 2001-2002. Since then we both have been primarily concerned with the initial analysis and writing on our respective sets of data. Beyond informal comparative discussion we have not tried to 're-synthesise' the project yet. We both found that, because of the nature of our methods, the data we gathered on the specific research remit-how national identity is mediated by large organisations and institutions-is at times difficult to disarticulate from a more holistic account of the ethnographic setting and moment. Like several of the studies, we found it easier to examine aspects of national identity than to assess the impact of current constitutional change on the same. Because of the relatively unsynthesised state of the project findings, we summarise them separately below.

Rapport-the Hospital in Ninewells:

Conclusion Number 1 concerns the plurality, temporariness and situationality of claims made to identity: 'Scottishness' --identity based on notions of nationalism in general-- was only one of a number of kinds of identity-claim that people made in Ninewells Hospital. It was not an identity that people always espoused --certainly not one that everyone espoused-- and those who did espouse it did not necessarily make it their fundamental or undergirding identity. The first conclusion to emphasize, then, concerns the multiplicity, even the contrariety, of positions that people in Ninewells adopted in connection with issues of nationalism: from being unconscious of it, to ignoring or denying it, to claiming such allegiance for themselves one moment --in one sentence, in one situation-- and avoiding it in another. Certainly, Scottishness was not an 'imperative' status at Ninewells: more important than other identities or always apparent. People contradicted themselves in regard to the claims they made on its basis, the allegiances they felt in its regard.

Conclusion Number 2 concerns the attachment of national identity-claims to particular practices and events: Rather than being an identity and a status that attached itself to all thinking and acting, Scottishness was practised in connection with certain undertakings including football, country dancing, and drinking alcohol; it accompanied a raised emotional charge that attached itself to these undertakings. 'Scottishness' was about vociferously supporting the national team against foreign teams, about ensuring children took seriously their lessons in country dancing, about proudly celebrating a capacity for consuming alcohol at parties and pubs.

Conclusion Number 3 concerns the location of identity-claims on a sliding scale of closeness and distance, measured in terms both of geography and descent: National identity is one of a set of identities ranged on a sliding scale of localness, of closeness and distance to oneself; one ranges up and down the scale, from greater to lesser inclusivities, at different moments. That is, Scottishness, the national identity, slides into other, more local and less inclusive identities --such as East of Scotland, Dundee, Lochee. Moreover, Scottishness often gives way to these other identities when considered in terms of the attention, the seriousness and the emotion with which people invest it. People more usually measure their belonging, certainly attest to it, in terms of their local housing estate or city --identities closer to them-- than their nation.

Hearn-HBOS:

(1) BoS developed an unusually socially bonded organisational culture that has become less tenable in a more competitive market environment. It appears that any sense of staff loyalty to HBOS will be much weaker than it was to BoS, and that the organisational identity of BoS will probably become 'thinner' and less clearly Scottish, more of a 'brand' than a 'culture.' Many of my informants seem to suspect that competitive market principles, with their privileging of individual actors, weaken organisational culture and integration, and to sense a connection between BoS, Scottishness, and a preference for a less market-driven way of life.

(2) People within HBOS appear to be making sense of the new organisation's pluri-national make-up partly by downplaying the significance of nationality, and partly by asserting the greater significance of an opposition between northern Britain (including Scotland) and the Greater London area 'down south'. But this does not add up to any cohesive shared identity based on Britishness.

(3) There is a tendency for HBOS staff, both Scottish and English, but especially the English, to view Scots as culturally parochial or insular within Britain (especially in relation to London), but a reciprocal tendency for Scots to view the English as parochial in relation to Europe and the wider world. Connected to this is a tendency to construe Scots as characteristically lacking in confidence, and English as characteristically over-confident, stereotypes that may have consequences for how people fare, or at least believe they will fare, within the organisation.

(4) There appears to be a general pattern of conceptual associations at work, in which notions of change, dynamism, progressiveness and youth are linked to the Halifax organisation, and in turn to Englishness and 'London life' more generally, while notions of tradition, parochialism, and inability to adapt are linked to BoS organisation, and in turn to Scottishness more generally. But countering this is an alternate story in which Halifax, Englishness, and London are associated with arrogance, over-confidence, superficiality, hyper-competitiveness, and BoS and Scottishness are associated with appropriate modesty, professionalism, prudence, and canniness. Obviously these ideological configurations, with their opposing evaluations of the fieldwork situation, are centred among English/Halifax staff and Scottish/BoS staff respectively, but they define a kind of conceptual evaluative universe in which many staff from both organisations try to negotiate middle paths, sometimes leaning one way, sometimes another, depending on the context and their personal fortunes at any given time.

Publications:

• Hearn, J. (n.d.) 'Selling Yourself Into the Job: Markets, Organisations, and Embeddedness in a British Bank Merger', submitted to Economy and Society in January 2005.

• Rapport, N., (2004) "From the Porter's Point of View: Participant-Observation by the Interpretive Anthropologist in the Hospital". In F.Maggs-Rapport (ed.) New Qualitative Methodologies in Health and Social Care. London: Routledge.  

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